1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a catalyst for oxygen reduction reaction and a method for preparing the same. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a catalyst for oxygen reduction reaction including carbon functionalized with poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) as a support, and a method for preparing the same.
[Description about National Support Research and Development]This study is made by the support of global frontier business of Korea Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning under the supervision of Korea Institute of Science and Technology, and the subject name thereof is Development of High-Quality/High-Durability Catalyst for Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells through Control of Nanostructure and Hybridization of Materials (2N39460) (Subject Identification No. :2014047511).
2. Description of the Related Art
Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) have been developed as the future energy conversion systems, since they can convert hydrogen gas directly into electricity without emission of pollutants. However, because the oxygen reduction reaction at a cathode has a large over-voltage, a large amount of Pt noble metal catalyst is required in order to obtain PEMFC having high electrochemical catalytic efficiency. In addition, it is difficult to increase the efficiency of a fuel cell merely by increasing the loading amount of Pt at a cathode through the subsidiary generation of concentration or different resistance, such as internal resistance, in a thick cathode. Therefore, a binary metal including Pt alloyed with a transition metal is used to increase the catalytic activity while reducing the use of Pt.
However, electron transfer from the transition metal to Pt in such a Pt-based alloy catalyst is inhibited by the formation of inevitable surface transition metal oxide caused by oxygen species having high electronegativity. Thus, there are problems in that the surface of a transition metal atom is oxidized with ease in the case of solution-based synthesis and catalysis in an acidic solution and that natural oxidation upon exposure to the air is hardly blocked without a separate blocking material.